Quick Sips - Uncanny #26 [February stuff]

Art by Julie Dillon

It’s a full February at Uncanny Magazine, with two poems, two short stories, and a novelette to round out this shortest month of the year. The fiction is broken situations. People who have been abused and are looking for a place to belong. And yet finding that place isn’t always easy—often what might seem safe could be a new abuse in disguise, a sort of pitcher plant designed to lure in the desperate. For those who can avoid the traps, though, the pieces also focus on the joy that can be found in finding a place, and a people, who make you feel at home. With a purpose that rings true and the ability to live, even if it will always be tempered by the ways the world is broken or corrupt. So let’s get to the reviews!

Quick Sips - Uncanny #14 (February Stuff)

The pieces in the February content from Uncanny do a great job of giving a wide ranging view of what makes up short SFF. From stories about love and immigration and Poe to a poem about being hot for Mars to nonfiction that educates and challenges, the issue provides a stunning arrangement of SFF that pushes the boundaries on narrative form and style. Plus there's a story just in time for a certain romantic holiday that is incredibly appropriate and rather fun. The story brings the laughter and the tears and the raw silences and does it in a way that is inspiring and imaginative. So yeah, let's get to the reviews! 

Art by John Picacio

Quick Sips - Uncanny #5 (August stuff)

Another month of Uncanny Magazine brings a mix of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The stories are a bit extreme in that some are on the longer side of short and one is perhaps the shortest that I've reviewed on the site so far. But all of them deliver strong ideas and a nice vein of darkness that makes this month a little unsettling. In some ways the issue (or this half of it) seems to revolve around the idea of the hidden coming to light, or perhaps seeing something often ignored in a whole new way. It's a strong installment, and I should get to reviewing it!

Art by Antonio Javier Caparo